InsaneJournal

Tweak says, "they be takin' mah bukkit!"

jlroberson (jlroberson) wrote in scans_daily,
@ 2009-06-18 02:11:00

Current location:	Seattle
Current mood:	bouncy
Current music:	Pere Ubu, "Song of the Bailing Man"
Entry tags:	creator: alan moore, creator: bill sienkiewicz, creator: garth ennis, creator: killian plunkett, genre: satire, theme: history, theme: iran, title: brought to light, title: unknown soldier

Iran: Some History from Ennis & Moore
I've been watching the events in Iran--what one can find out through the web, because the networks are blind--and was reminded of some work by Garth Ennis and Alan Moore that, at least in scraps, helps give a little bit of context to our historical place in this whole mess.

I get annoyed with some crazies on the right suggesting we should intervene in what's going on in Iran. Our intervention was partly at the root of everything since, and it might finally be over and done--if we do not get our dirty fingers on it.
Sigh. Such people need context. Sadly, you can read, so you're not one of them. But you may find this interesting and diverting anyway. Someone else posted an individual Iranian's perspective from PERSEPOLIS. Here is an introduction to the broad political outlines of our rather regrettable history there.
The first is from Garth Ennis & Killian Plunkett's UNKNOWN SOLDIER, and an allegorical view of how we put the Shah into supreme power in the 1950s. For Unknown Soldier, of course, read CIA. Helping, among others, BP.

Secondly, Alan Moore & Bill Sienkewicz' history of the CIA, BROUGHT TO LIGHT, and some material about the Hostage Crisis and Iran-Contra.

Unknown Soldier(c)DC Comics. Brought to Light (c) Alan Moore & Bill Sienkewicz.
And please support the protesters. I'm sure you can see now it's the least we can do.

(Post a new comment)

	volksjager 2009-06-18 07:21 am UTC (link)
	I liked this version of the Unknown Soldier. (Reply to this) (Thread)

"Well, Sir, you are NOT an American Soldier."

jlroberson
2009-06-18 07:25 am UTC (link)

I thought Plunkett's art was excellent(but I'm a tiny lines-and-thin faces guy myself) and the use of the Soldier as the spirit of the black ops of America was poetic and perfect. I also liked the protagonist and his rather odd relationship with a ghost of a girl that he liked, or rather, not the girl he liked because she was killed before he got to know her, but rather what he imagined she was.

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	Re: "Well, Sir, you are NOT an American Soldier." volksjager 2009-06-18 08:36 am UTC (link)
	There's a good story on the Shah in The Big Book of wierdos. I wish I could find mne i'd post it. (Reply to this) (Parent) (Thread)

	Re: "Well, Sir, you are NOT an American Soldier." jlroberson 2009-06-18 10:14 am UTC (link)
	Isn't that the 70s one? And yes, do! (Reply to this) (Parent)

	Happened across this jlroberson 2009-06-18 08:17 am UTC (link)
	(Reply to this)

	blake_reitz 2009-06-18 08:44 am UTC (link)
	Damn, I was just thinking of posting some scans from Unknown Soldier. Excellent comic, that. (Reply to this) (Thread)

	jlroberson 2009-06-18 10:18 am UTC (link)
	And the thing is, it wasn't a retcon, unless there had been another series where the Soldier had been adventuring after WW2. It's a perfectly logical continuation from what had already been done. Much like Ennis' version of Hans Von Hammer fits in perfectly between Kubert's and Pratt's. (Reply to this) (Parent) (Thread)

	blake_reitz 2009-06-18 04:54 pm UTC (link)
	Very true! And there's even a mention, briefly, about how the Soldier is not superhuman, only a human "in perfect physical condition", so you could even fit this in the DCU proper! (Reply to this) (Parent)

halloweenjack
2009-06-18 11:04 am UTC (link)

You know, I'm usually Alan Moore's biggest fan, and really wish that he and Sienkewicz had finished Big Numbers... but I wouldn't trust the Christic Institute's version of things; they're sort of the Grand Unified American Conspiracy people. (Although, re-reading this for the first time in a couple of decades, Moore and Sienkewicz really do effectively portray the overheated, grabbing-at-your-shirtsleeve, goddamnit-it-all-fits-together-if-you'd-only-listen-to-me-maaaaaaan feeling of the true conspiracy buff a lot better than, say, Oliver Stone, whose JFK starts off with the utterly fucked premise that Jim Garrison was actually sane, and goes downhill from there.)

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jlroberson
2009-06-18 08:22 pm UTC (link)

Well, consider though that Moore came to the conclusion after researching it(which resulted in CIA officers asking his neighbors questions) that, if you're ON a CIA assassination list, you're the safest person ever. But if your name is LIKE someone's on said list, you're dead. He basically decided they're a conspiracy, but a bad one, full of dangerous incompetents. (People forget that stupidity and failed plans can do more damage than anything intentional)

And I'm not taking Moore here at face value; I've had 20 years since reading this to know what's right and what's not. How it fits together? Well, it fits together in the sense that US covert policy was all done by the US. I didn't really get a GUCT out of reading it. And the basic facts? Mostly correct. In the case of the Iran section, this is all true stuff that's been documented elsewhere and was well-known then. The history of our involvement with the Shah and Savak is not disputed. (And the cake thing came up in the Iran-Contra hearings)

The "conspiracy theory" that they got knocked down on was the La Penca Bombing, which is not what Moore's doing, that was the other story in the book, an unreadable section of wordy sludge by Joyce Brabner. Most of the CIA history part is, as far as is known, true.

I just recently found his spoken-word version. It's pretty good. Though he is using that "Old Gangsters" voice and it grates a bit at length.

On JFK: look, what nobody ever seems to notice about JFK is that it comes to the conclusion that he was killed by a group of fascist homosexuals. That's pretty much all I have to say about that crap film that made anyone who DOES see the government doing nasty secret things look stupid for a long time after. I hate Oliver Stone.

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	mullon 2009-06-18 12:04 pm UTC (link)
	Hey, it's that thing from Jeepers Creepers! (Reply to this)

	parsimonia 2009-06-18 12:43 pm UTC (link)
	Sorry, but how many pages is this comic in total? There are over 7 pages here and if it's a standard 22-page comic, that is past the 1/3 limit (which is stated in the posting guidelines) and you will need to reduce the number of scans. Thank you. (Reply to this) (Thread)

	(Anonymous) 2009-06-18 01:46 pm UTC (link)
	There are scans from two seperate comics here. Each is under seven pages. Enjoy your day. (Reply to this) (Parent) (Thread)

	These looked like they were from the same comic? Uh...they ain't. jlroberson 2009-06-18 08:53 pm UTC (link)
	But just in case, two of the Brought to Light pages were dispensable, so I just removed them, leaving purely the Iran material. So there. (Reply to this) (Parent)

	espanolbot 2009-06-18 02:00 pm UTC (link)
	Does anyone have scans of him killing Hitler? :) (Reply to this)

	proteus_lives 2009-06-18 07:59 pm UTC (link)
	Damn. That Unknown Soldier is one tough sonuvabitch. On a sidenote, it always makes me laugh that the Shah is considered worse then the fundies that run Iran now. (Reply to this) (Thread)

jlroberson
2009-06-18 09:00 pm UTC (link)

He was worse, in that he had another government propping him up. Nobody in Iran is nostalgic for the Shah. But they also think that the revolutionary regime isn't any different in the way it treats the people. Much like no one in Russia ever wanted the Czar back but that didn't mean they were happy with the Soviet government.

It's not a zero-sum game or contest. Both can be rotten. But if this were still the Shah's regime at its height with the CIA training Savak, there would not have even been the possibility of this protest accomplishing anything. That's the difference. All the protesters would already be dead and there would be no debate now among those actually running Iran. Now those leaders are fighting among themselves over this.

And in other news, it appears the "president" of Iran has skipped out on his country. I imagine when he ran to Russia he assumed the Basij would end this over the weekend. My, he looks stupid now. Good luck getting back in, Mr. Ahmadinejad!
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2009/jun/18/mahmoud-ahmadinejad-iran

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proteus_lives
2009-06-18 10:42 pm UTC (link)

He was an evil bastard, no argument and I see how foreign-backing made him more resented. But he was not replaced by anything better. I've gotten into a lot of debates with people who claim the revolution was a purely good thing.

As for the Savak comment. True, they would be harsher. But so would the Mullah's men if not for one thing. Technology. 30 years ago they didn't have tweeter, cellphones, instant news-feeds. A slaughter could be pulled off as long as the cities or borders were sealed. I have no doubt the Iranian regime would be doing that if they thought they could escape the world's eye.

I hope this time the Iranians get the democratic government they've been hoping and fighting for.

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jlroberson
2009-06-19 12:32 pm UTC (link)

Oh, no disputing the Mullahs have been and will be brutal, like the Basij who just got a clear signal to break heads from Khamenei's foolish speech. The revolution was only a good thing in that it established a republic as a concept in the first place. The fall of the reactionary mullahs(which are not the only ones--Iran's most senior cleric, who fell from grace for criticizing Khomenei's policies, is on the side of the protesters; Khamenei in fact is not respected as a cleric and was given his position for keeping his nose nice and brown when Khomeini was alive) was implicit, eventually, in the revolution itself--the "supreme leader" is inherently at odds with the concept of a republic.

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